Español jurídico: Diseño curricular y preparación de una clase

Abstract

Spanish for lawyers present particularities that don’t exist in other specialized languages. Indeed, this language tends to be archaic and to use a formal style. It takes lexical and grammatical elements from classical and contemporary Spanish. The foreign lawyer needs to show great mastery of the Spanish language. Therefore, this might seem a difficult task for the learner of Spanish for lawyers who lacks of certain linguistics prerequisites. Besides, it is fundamental that he/she has some basic notions of Spanish law, since he/she will have to deal with case studies concerning this discipline. In this paper, we will expose the way the subject Spanish for Lawyers of the University Paris Nanterre was organized, as for the linguistic competencies and as for the professional ones. In order to face the heterogeneity of the learners, in terms of level of mastery of the target language, we adopted an eclectic method under a competency-based language teaching approach. The learners will have to deal with different situations and contents inspired from their future job. For example, grammar exercises will be selected accordingly and will be taught explicitly and implicitly. Learners’ oral and writing skills will be assessed continuously as they resolve problems linked to the lawyers’ world.